Briefing on the meeting of the forum of journalists working on forced migration in drc
Briefing on the media and journalists meeting today Friday 13th October 2023 at our offices to plan about various in line with Global Refugee Forum in Geneva in December 2023.
Today was held the meeting of executive committee of journalists working on forced migrants issues in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The committee is composed of 8 people among them 6 attended the meeting and two sent their apologies.
The meeting started at 11am and ended at 12:30 pm and among issues raised included:
The work plan for the team from now until end of December 2023, it was agreed that each person will select the field of work and then compile one document,
They meeting agreed to cover also forced migrants during this period of elections especially Internally Displaced Persons and also sensitize refugees not to be involved in elections in DRCongo,
The participants observed that UNHCR in Goma does not engage with the media, it is the same with the National Commission for Refugees. Those who have tried shared their worst experience and were concerned on what they can do to ensure that UNHCR accounts to people through media engagement. The meeting also highlighted the need to establish contacts with key DRC government officials such as the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the President Spokesperson, the Minister of Communication, and the CNR national officials among others, at the same tasks were given to compile contacts with other International Media such as CNN, BBC, Voice of America, Radio France International, Al-jazeera, CCCTV, among others,
Members agreed to strongly take part in the Media Conference on the issue of DRC participation in the Global Refugee Forum which will take place in Geneva in December 2023.
The committee pointed out two major priorities for journalists, the first will be the training in refugee rights which should be done early February 2024 and the second is the mobilization of funds in order to facilitate their work and make it easier.
Much as we do not have funding yet for this activity we are interested to work hard to ensure we get the basic facilitation for the media in order to highlight refugees issues, this is our passion. We humbly call upon anybody interested to support financially.
Thanks
